


shared scraps of one soul

by bigchickcannibalistic



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, I didn't need these feels at 1am, set somewhere between DH1 and DH2, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 13:42:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11403594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigchickcannibalistic/pseuds/bigchickcannibalistic
Summary: “We had such dreams together,” echoes the Heart.Or4 Promises that turned into Could’ve Been’s – a study by Corvo AttanoOr how to break your heart with just one sentence.





	shared scraps of one soul

**Author's Note:**

> title from Ditto by Miracle of Sound
> 
> this was inspired by a post on tumblr. Not edited.

1.

They often talked about a villa.

Well it started out as a throwaway suggestion one cold morning with Corvo shaking from the growing chill and wishing for the sun back in Serkonos for the umpteenth time in his, how long has it been? Five, six years?

It started as a throwaway line, sneaking between Jessamine’s shawl and her playful smirk. Yet it grew as time went on, with each sliver of free time that left their minds to wander, they somehow as if by clockwork, went to the idea – to the _villa_.

It was nothing specific, and yet some parts of it were very specific – like a vast vine cellar, with a few racks of whiskey – _“you wouldn’t deprive me of whiskey, would you, Corvo? I’d be dreadful.” “No, how could I?” “I see that smirk. Don’t you bloody dare.”_

Like a garden that stretches as far as the eye can see from the balcony – _“a sizeable one, with the morning sun as its lamp.”_ A garden that doesn’t settle on being just a garden. A garden that fades into the forests behind it, melds near perfectly, a sight that’d make Anton Sokolov cry – _“Now you’re being petty.” “Maybe.”_

It bode no question that they’d be far from any Serkonan city, far away from any prying eyes and gossip that’d reach the capitol, far enough away to be just Jessamine and Corvo; not an Empress of the Isles, not her Royal Protector. _“So you want us to be hermits?” “Carriages exist for a reason, Corvo. Or maybe we’d go horse riding, wouldn’t that be fun?”_

They talked about going there to this imaginary villa, indulged whenever Jessamine groaned and her hands massaging her temples wouldn’t help, when even Corvo couldn’t aid with the weight of the Empire. How they’d lounge in the sun like cats – how she’d finally see him in a silly hat two sizes too big, and in outrageous sunglasses; how he’d finally see her in something other than dark clothes, so much like the smog of Dunwall – _She’d shine in bright colours, bring out the joy in the greens and blues._

They shoot back and forth about getting a pet – a wolfhound, they’d name Dandelion, Eugene, maybe Martha or Beatrici; a cat with more spots than one of Emily’s early drawings; or maybe a bird, with a beak as outrageous as its colours with an attitude reminiscent of certain members of Parliament.

They would lounge, finally with some semblance of peace. They would lounge and marvel at Emily’s progress, muse aloud how _“she turned out all right for all her running around” “I wouldn’t have it any other way”_

There’s a villa they would go to – nothing more than a dot on the map, nothing more than a speck among the edges of Serkonos, hard to find and easy to overlook, nothing more than an idea, a maybe wrapped in a promise of someday.

 

( _Someday someday someday_

 _But that turned to never never never._ )

 

2.

It isn’t lost on him how Emily stares at the sword fixed on his belt, despite it being folded and barely visible. Stares with a question in her eyes, a question at the tip of her tongue. Yet she waits, bites it down and ask about something else.

She waits until the clocks just chime midnight on her twelfth birthday. Waits for him to catches her wandering the halls like a ghost – _“I can’t sleep. I keep – seeing the river. Except it’s not the river. But it’s cold like the river but it’s calm and – I don’t like it, Corvo.”_

 _(“She’s seen more than she lets on. Oh, Emily,”_ Jessamine whispers, echoes really, through the sinew of tissue and black magic, words heavier than the entire city. _)_

“I want you to teach me to fight. With that,” Emily points at his belt, where she knows his sword is. Her eyes are hard, black circles framing them. “Like you do.”

“Like me?”

Emily nods and Corvo notices one of the ladles – rumoured missing from the kitchen a few days ago – held in her grip, held more like a mace than a sword.

 _“It was bound to happen,”_ Jessamine echoes from his coat pocket – it’s where she’s decided to keep her, close to his heart despite the irony of it. _“She does take after her father. In all but name.”_

_And you paled at the image of our little Emily causing chaos with a pair of wooden swords; had the butlers and maids keep a close eye on their spoons and cutlery for three weeks straight._

“You can’t fight like me, Emily.”

“What? Why not?”

He smiles, indulgent. “I don’t know how to wield a ladle. Maybe you can give _me_ some lessons?”

The mischievous sparkle shining in her eyes makes his chest hurt, makes him imagine a different set of eyes and a smirk to go with it. _Not everything from her father then._

“I suppose I could. But.” Emily raises her weapon, as if to stop Corvo. “You have to teach me to use your sword. It’s only fair.”

_(“Do you think it’s worth it – hiring a tutor for her?”_

_“For the two weeks they’d be here? No.”_

_“Two weeks – generous. Shall I leave her at your mercy?”_

_“You make it sound like a bad thing.”_

_“Darling, you’d spoil her.”_

_“Hardly.”_

_“I know about the sweets. Those apricot tarts. The cherry biscuits.”_

_“You say as if you haven’t done the same.”_

_“Excuse me, I hardly give her that oft – don’t change the subject!”)_

He goes to ruffle her hair, ignore the indignant swipes at his hand as he does so. “Suppose it is. Come let’s find you a weapon I’m familiar with.”

 

3.

 _“She worries. For her people. For Alex. For you,”_ Jessamine echoes with every heartbeat, twitching faintly on the pillow.

“She’s been worried for a month now. An assassination attempt does that to people,” he bites back, harsher than need be. He sighs, pinching his nose and looks up from the guardsmen schedule. “I’m sorry.”

 _“She worries,”_ repeats Jessamine, softer now. He sighs again and looks back to the schedule, circling the names that need to be switched. _“Worries you’re hiding something from her.”_

He looks to the cloth wrapped around his hand, to the faint glow of the Mark. And yet he knows, somehow, that’s not what Jessamine means. The alternative is – not an easy subject to breach.

He has thought about it – how to tell Emily that he’s her father, how to cut away all the stories Jessamine has told her all those years ago. It feels like he’s taking another piece of her away from Emily by doing so, and he’s heard how she struggles with it – remembering Jessamine, looking at her paintings and finding a mother behind an Empress.

His stories can only do so much.

It could be a relief, to know she hasn’t lost both parents after all. ( _“You know she thinks of you as a father already, Corvo.”_ )

He thought about saying it over dinner since they usually dine so late, when one manages to drag the other for a meal they definitely weren’t planning on skipping. There are less people then, and it would be easy to slip it out during conversation.

He thought about calling her in his office, to tell her officially, or as officially as he can, still somewhat unused to the formalities of one Royal Spymaster.

Then again some small part of himself whispers to slip a letter to her one night. Slip in in the coat she keeps hidden beneath her bed – the same coat she wears when she’s sneaking out of the tower, kept in a locked trunk so the maids can’t get to it. (And what is a lock to him?) This way he can avoid the possibility of seeing disgust contort her features, avoid seeing his girl who look at him with awe and now with respect, glare at him in horror.

 _“She wouldn’t,”_ Jessamine echoes, firmly and Corvo can imagine her standing next to him, lips thin but firm, brows drawn down and eyes hard, unflinching, unwavering. _“Kaldwins never knew fondness. Not as others see it.”_

“And what others see isn’t always true.”

The heart twitches, light shining with the movement, yet it remains silent.

It doesn’t soothe his nerves.

\-----

In the end he tells her once they’re atop the clock tower, Emily sitting with her feet swinging over the edge, like she’s teen again and waiting for him to arrive with Samuel. He tells her with the mask down – he needs to be honest, open about this, and the mask is anything but.

Honest and open and yet he tells her when her back’s to him, when he can’t see her reaction beyond a brief _Oh._ He likes to torture himself that way. It’s the only explanation.

Jessamine would’ve told her by the fireplace, with all three of them enjoying a few rounds of cards – _“Yes cards, Corvo. I will teach her someday, mark my words!”_ Would’ve started off with her Empress voice but it would’ve dissolved into her motherly voice. He doesn’t know what her reaction would’ve been, cannot stop on one image from all the possibilities.

It certainly isn’t the way she looks at him with a wide smile and a _“So I can call you Father now?”_

 

4.

_“You are more fidgety than a heart.”_

“No riddles today?”

_“Inspiration is fleeting when faced with persistent distractions.”_

“Ah, there it is.”

 _“She will be fine,”_ Jessamine intones, voice more coherent than he recalls. He can almost hear _her_ and not the distortion of the Void. Maybe it’s a good day. (Maybe it’s a bad day.)

(The only person who knows decidedly doesn’t wish to share.)

He inhales, holding his breath and counts to five in Serkonan. As he exhales, slowly, his eyes wander back to the small alcove where Emily and Wyman have settled themselves. Decidedly too close to one another, despite Emily laughing half of the time and Wyman making faces to accompany their dramatic re-enactments of one thing or the other. Last time it was Count Markuson’s 57th birthday gala, with Wyman using a pair of combs to help “faithfully” imitate the Count’s son.

 _It was bound to happen,_ he tells himself. Emily was bound to find a suit, hopefully because of love. Honestly with the way her 14 th birthday ended – her punching another Lord’s son for not understanding that no, she doesn’t want to hear another one of his “fascinating” facts about Tyvia – it’s been an oddly calming affair, Emily dealing with suitors. A lot less bloody.

“How would you handle it, I wonder? Sit her down for tea – no, this would be a whiskey discussion. Watered down for her, double shot for you. Would you talk about your own experiences, how you fell madly in love with me?” He hums, his lips quirky upward as Emily falls on her side, clutching her chest while Wyman plays an imaginary lute – upside-down apparently. “Would you approve, even?”

_“No threats.”_

Corvo whines before he can stop himself. “I’ll keep them only slightly terrifying.”


End file.
